72. Gone

Don't look for us. There isn't time to waste. Remember: Tanya, Siobhan, Amun, Alistair, all the nomads you can find. We'll seek out Peter and Charlotte on our way. We're so sorry that we have to leave you this way, with no goodbyes or explanations. It's the only way for us. We love you.

I read the note again and again, trying to make sense of the message written upon the page.

I read the note through Carlisle's eyes. Then with my own when he turned it around for us to see. I read it in my family's thoughts, as if one of them could force the words into an order I could understand.

Alice had torn the page from a book, scrawled her note on one side, and left it with Sam to deliver to us.

Alice was gone. I had seen her leaving in Sam's thoughts. She and Jasper had run into the ocean and had not resurfaced. They could be anywhere in the world by now. Even if we could have tracked them underwater, we would never be able to catch them now. They had many hours head start. Even if we could find them, she would see us coming and be gone before I could get close enough to hear.

Alice was gone.

I heard Carlisle say the words aloud. They still didn't make sense.

Alice had decided to leave us.

When we needed her most!

Alice was gone. Without a goodbye. Without an explanation.

Alice was gone, and she was not coming back.

Irina's betrayal was nothing to Alice's.

I heard Esme begin to sob. I heard Rosalie's shocked exclamation of disbelief. I heard Emmett's silent string of cussing. I heard Bella's sharp inhalation.

My eyes found Bella's face, and my disbelief, my hurt and anger toward my sister, my confusion, all faded. Jasper was Alice's life, as Bella was mine. If it were Jasper who was under threat of death, wouldn't I have wanted Bella as far from that threat as I could get her? She wouldn't go willingly. If Bella thought she could help, save him by staying, she would have risked her life to do so - her life perhaps, but not mine, and I would not have been remotely willing to risk hers. I would have had no choice but to take her and run.

Hadn't I already abandoned my family, left them to fight my battle without me? When the newborn army had come for her, Bella had begged me to sit out, to let the others take the risk in my stead. She couldn't live without me, couldn't even stand the possibility that I might be hurt.

And I had done as she had asked. Because neither could I abide her suffering, nor her death.

If I could have hidden her safely away now, I would have done so, but there was no hiding from Demetri. Leaving my family meant abandoning the chance that any of us would survive. Alice had given us that much. Together with the packs and our friends as witnesses, Alice had given us our chance to live, however slim.

Could I blame her for choosing the certainty of Jasper's survival?

She had done what she could to assure our survival first. She owed us nothing. I already owed her everything.

Amidst the stunned silence of my family, Sam's thoughts were loud, filled with images of our training that spring, of the army we had defeated. Jasper had been lethal, a force unto himself.

Sam remembered Alice telling him to obey her as if all our lives, and theirs, had depended on it, and he had done so.

Was she being overly dramatic? We had defeated the other army without a single loss. Could this danger really be that much greater than the force we had already repelled?

"Yes," I muttered, "things are that dangerous."

"Enough that you would abandon your family?"

I met his eyes, hating the scorn within them, for I already had abandoned them. But like Alice, I had, first, done everything within my power to protect them. Even allowing Bella to be bait, to lead the newborns - with her own blood! - toward the trap we had set.

"We don't know what she saw," I said, trying to keep my voice even. "Alice is neither unfeeling nor a coward. She just has more information than we do."

He couldn't imagine any knowledge that would provoke him to leave his tribe to the tender mercies of an army of vampires. Not that he could have if he had wanted to.

"We would not - "

"You are bound differently than we are." I cut off Sam's derisive, self-righteous words. "We each still have our free will."

Becoming a werewolf narrowed their choices. Imprinting took them away. Though Bella was my life, my actions were still those of my own choosing. And Sam, as the Alpha, could command in a way Carlisle would not, even if he could.

My tribe is my family. Their coven has no honor...

I lifted my chin, holding his emotionless gaze with all the pride I had in my loved ones, Alice included. There was no real reason for him to risk himself, nor his people. Jacob might feel differently, but Sam's first priority was not to us. He could save his people and himself simply by staying home.

"But you should heed the warning," I advised him. "This is not something you want to involve yourselves in. You can still avoid what Alice saw."

Sam bared his teeth at me, looking wolf-like in his human form. "We don't run away."

I felt the sting of his words, but it was Carlisle who answered, choosing to steer Sam's thoughts toward his own people. "Don't get your family slaughtered for pride."

Sam looked away from my confrontational glare and toward Carlisle, seeing the deep compassion I had always found within my father's eyes. Carlisle worried that if the packs fought and were decimated, it might forever leave his people without protection. Sam could tell that Carlisle would not ask anyone to sacrifice themselves for us.

Emmett had foreseen it, though. An invading vampire army on their land was not something they could allow, no matter their target. It wasn't just pride or prejudice; they were genetically compelled to protect their people from vampires. And in this case, an imprintee was the target. No, they would not be sitting this fight out.

The smile Sam gave Carlisle was kinder than the one he had given me. "As Edward pointed out, we don't have the same kind of freedom that you have. Renesmee is as much a part of our family now as she is yours. Jacob cannot abandon her, and we cannot abandon him."

He glanced at the note. I didn't need to be a telepath to hear what he didn't say: That Alice had abandoned us.

"You don't know her," I snapped.

"Do you?" he shot back.

Before I could take a step in his direction, to defend my sister's honor, Carlisle held me in place. His hand on my shoulder was both consoling and cautioning. It wouldn't do to give in to pain and anger, whether we needed the wolves' help or not.

"We have much to do, son," Carlisle said. "Whatever Alice's decision, we would be foolish not to follow her advice now. Let's go home and get to work."

I gave one sharp nod of agreement, holding myself in place through sheer force of will. Sam's scorn, his derisive thoughts toward my sister, his self-righteousness, all stung, and the instinct to defend was only heightened by the presence of werewolves. My family was in danger. I needed to act, to fight for them!

And here was an easy target, defenceless in his human form.

"Thank you, Sam," Carlisle said, wanting to end on a positive note. We did need them, after all.

Sam softened, feeling less defensive and somewhat responsible for the loss of two of our family. "I'm sorry. We shouldn't have let her through."

"You did the right thing," Carlisle assured him. "Alice is free to do what she will. I wouldn't deny her that liberty."

His parting shot gave me a savage kind of pleasure, though Carlisle didn't mean it as such. I knew exactly how Sam was capable of imposing his will upon his pack. He had ordered Jacob to kill Bella, while she was still human, in order to kill the child I had planted. If Jacob had not been able to tear himself free from Sam's control, he would have had no choice but to follow that order. And now Sam claimed my daughter as part of his family? It was all I could do not to growl at him.

I wasn't the only one affected by Sam's comments. Emmett held himself in check, but he, too, felt the urge to take some kind of action. Standing around talking was simply not good enough!

"I'm not going down without a fight," Emmett growled. "Alice told us what to do. Let's get it done."

Swallowing her tearless sobs, Esme nodded in fervent agreement. Rose, too, was itching to be away from here. Carlisle and I exchanged a determined nod. Alice had shown us the way. It was up to us to face the future head-on, with courage and resolve.

I wanted to be the Edward who faced things, not the one who ran from them. I wanted to be the Edward that Bella had always seen, the one worthy of love. And I had that! I had my father's love, my mother's, my sisters', and my brothers'. And I had Bella's love. Whether for another month or an eternity, she was mine as I was hers, and I would do everything I could to deserve her.

Expecting to see the same resolve I was attempting to muster, I looked at Bella, but her eyes were dull, her face expressionless. Perhaps because she had not spent decades watching Alice's predictions come true, but she didn't seem to have as much faith in the chance Alice had gifted us with as I did.

Well, I would believe for the both of us. It would be nice to be proven right for a change.

Without a word, Bella turned to run back the way we had come. It felt good to put Sam behind me, but now that we were running back for the house, I couldn't escape the emptiness of knowing we were returning without Alice and Jasper.

A feeling my family echoed.

We had counted on her foresight for so long, I felt lost knowing that I would only have the legacy of her last vision to sustain me.

Would she see when this was all over and it was safe to come home? Or would she feel that her betrayal had severed our family ties for good? If we got through this, it would be because of her, and I, for one, would welcome her back with open arms. We would only have been separated for a month. That was not really so long, after all.

A month. There was so little time to prepare.

"There was that other trail," Esme said when we came across the place where Alice's scent had diverged from the path she and Jasper had taken. "It was fresh."

"It has to be from earlier in the day," I said after giving the area a cursory sniff. "It was just Alice, without Jasper."

This was our home territory and our scents were all over the place. I didn't see that this meant anything. Why would Alice have left Jasper? He didn't block her visions. Would he have allowed her to go off on her own, considering what she had just seen? I doubted it.

My mother nodded and resumed her forlorn run toward home. The rest of us started to follow her, but Bella lingered, smelling the area more fully than I had bothered to.

"Bella?"

"I want to follow the trail," she insisted.

Her need to grasp at a diversion, to think there was meaning behind the smallest anomaly, was understandable, but the disappointment when it turned out to be nothing was not something I wanted to experience. We had so much to do, why waste time investigating an odd scent trail?

"It probably just leads back to the house."

"Then I'll meet you there," she answered, as if I was about to let her out of my sight for even a fraction of a second.

The pain of those words, so easily and blithely said, pierced me clean through.

"I'll come with you," I told her, then met Carlisle's gaze. Unsurprisingly, I felt the same resistance in him at letting me out of his sight. Though our daughter was back at the house, he had an irrational fear that Bella and I were about to disappear like Alice and Jasper.

"We'll meet you at home, Carlisle," I reassured him.

He nodded, and they all resumed their run home.

Only once their footsteps were no longer audible did Bella look at me, a familiar questioning in her golden eyes.

"I couldn't let you walk away from me," I admitted. "It hurt just to imagine it."

There was no question in her eyes now, only love and understanding. Bella held her hand out to me, and I clasped it gladly.

"Let's hurry. Renesmee will be awake."

Bella nodded her agreement, and we took off. After only a few strides, I had to admit she was right. This was only minutes older than the path Alice and Jasper had taken together. Neither Alice nor Bella did anything without reason. Alice had left Jasper, for however brief a time, to wait in the forest alone, while she did whatever errand had sent her on this solo trek. Bella seemed to think it was important enough to investigate.

It wasn't long before her destination became obvious. Alice had left Jasper to go to mine and Bella's empty cottage. Why would she go alone, and why at all?

"She left Jasper to wait for her and came here?"

Bella only shook her head in response. Either she had no answer for me, or didn't want to voice whatever suspicions she might harbor.

"Give me just a minute," Bella said.

I let go of her hand unwillingly, but she seemed as determined to leave me behind to wait alone, in confusion, as Alice had with Jasper. Was she simply trying to recreate what Alice had done in an effort to understand her better? Or was she, like Alice, keeping things from me?

I didn't like it.

"Bella?"

"Please?" she begged. "Thirty seconds."

Then she was gone. I was left, a statue in the rose garden, witness to little more than my own isolation. I discerned Bella moving around inside, heard the crackling of a low fire, caught a dry rustling of paper.

Thirty seconds had never seemed so interminable. Each one stretched like hours. I had no heartbeat to measure them by. My breaths felt more like gasps, and were too irregular to mark the time. I couldn't do it. I wasn't strong enough to bear all that had occurred today in complete solitude.

Without having made the decision to move, I bolted for the door, a choking panic rising in my throat. I nearly cried with relief at seeing Bella standing in front of the fire. She was staring into it, a frown creasing her brow. I took a few deep breaths, feeling the tight band of fear constricting my chest loosen a notch or two.

A new scent of burning paper filled the air, and I noticed that she had thrown a book into the fireplace. The pages curled as I watched, and I was able to read enough of their words before they blackened and broke apart to identify the book as the same one Alice had chosen to write her note on. I couldn't fathom any significance Shakespeare might have had in relation to Alice's message to us.

Had she simply gotten partway to the Quileute border before realizing she needed to leave us a message? And then come here, to vandalize one of the books Bella had chosen to bring from Charlie's house? She could easily have asked Sam to pass her verbal message along. We already knew the names she had given us. We had perfect recall, and did not need the written reminder. Just to say goodbye, so long, and sorry?

It made no sense to me.

"What's going on, Bella?" I demanded.

"She was here." Her voice was low, dejected. "She ripped a page out of my book to write her note on."

I had deduced as much for myself, but the critical question was, "Why?"

"I don't know why."

"Why are you burning it?"

"I - I - " Bella floundered, casting about for an explanation of her own actions.

Or was she looking for one she could give me?

"It seemed appropriate," Bella finally said.

Her destruction of the book reminded me of the radio Emmett had given her, which she had forcefully removed from her truck after I'd left. Was I just lucky she had not started to tear down the house Alice had designed for us? Alice's leaving must feel too familiar to Bella, remind her too much of my own.

"We don't know what she's doing," I repeated what I had told Sam. Not even I had seen all that Alice had. She left for a reason. I was sure it was a good one.

"When we were on the plane to Italy," Bella said quietly, "on our way to rescue you… she lied to Jasper so that he wouldn't come after us. She knew that if he faced the Volturi, he would die. She was willing to die herself rather than put him in danger. Willing for me to die, too. Willing for you to die."

If they were on the plane to Italy when she told him not to follow, if he had followed, by the time he got to us, it would have been too late. Alice and Bella had almost been too late as it was. My sister had been willing to risk her life to save me, but if we had all died, and if he had come after us, Jasper would have died needlessly. Of course she would not have been willing to let him throw his life away. On what? An act of vengeance?

"She has her priorities," Bella concluded, implying that we were not among them.

"I don't believe it."

I heard what she was saying. Alice had taken Jasper because our lives, compared with his, meant nothing. And I understood it to a degree. Bella was my priority. Bella and Renesmee. I would risk everything for them, my life and the rest of my family's lives included.

I already had.

Thinking back to the newborn army, I could easily remember Jasper's suggestion that Bella be used as bait. He had no problems with allowing her to risk her life for our sake. Doing so might have increased everyone else's odds of survival. Alice's odds. But being there, in the middle of the attack, would have been a death sentence for Bella.

Bella's death would have been a certainty in that field.

Would Jasper's death have been a certainty here? I could easily imagine so.

Aro wanted Alice, and like me, Jasper would have sacrificed everything to protect his mate, the center of his world, the woman he loved. Alice loved him no less. She would not let him die for her, nor for us.

"Maybe it was just Jasper in danger," I said. "Her plan would work for the rest of us, but he'd be lost if he stayed. Maybe…"

Bella interrupted my speculating. "She could have told us that. Sent him away."

"But would Jasper have gone? Maybe she's lying to him again."

"Maybe," Bella agreed, but it didn't sound like she believed what she was saying.

It seemed to be a family tradition - lying to protect the ones we loved. Bella had never been a good liar, but I believed in Alice. I believed in the chance she had given us.

"We should go home," Bella said. "There's no time."

Well, that much was certainly true.

Hand in hand, we took off for our family's home. Glancing at her as we ran, I could see the grief in her eyes, in the twist of her mouth. What she had found at our cottage had not provided her with hope. It made me wonder what she had hoped to find.

In the few minutes Bella and I had taken to visit our little home, the rest of our family had already come up with a plan to divide up the world. It helped that we had already done so much planning over the past months. Our aim was different now, seeking allies rather than information, but we were ready for every travel option we had been able to think of.

Everyone was changed into travel appropriate clothing, plane tickets were purchased, and rental cars arranged. All the bags had been packed days ago. I was impressed with their efficiency. Alice herself couldn't have done better.

The thought made my eyes burn.

They were all ready to go, waiting only on me and Bella, unwilling to leave without saying goodbye.

Jacob and Renesmee were seated on the couch. Her beautiful eyes found mine the second Bella and I entered the house. They were wide and full of worry. Her family was leaving, some had already gone. She did not seem afraid, but this abrupt change was upsetting. We were all upset about Alice's and Jasper's leaving, and now the rest of them were to leave too.

Jacob, of course, had told her everything that had occurred while she had slept. She was to meet many new people, and all our lives depended upon them accepting her. It was a lot for a three month old child to be responsible for. The two had watched and listened to plans that didn't include them, unaffected by the newfound optimism of the others.

In the short time we had been apart and they had made their plans, my family's spirits had lifted considerably. Having something productive to do felt far better than waiting for the future to find us.

Which, apparently, was to be my role.

Fantastic.

"We're to stay here?" I asked Carlisle.

"Alice said that we would have to show people Renesmee, and we would have to be careful about it," he explained. "We'll send whomever we can find back here to you - Edward, you'll be the best at fielding that particular minefield."

As the resident telepath, of course. I could counter their assumptions, reinforce what they saw and heard, bring their attention to details they ignored or dismissed.

Yet, I could also help find those whose help we sought. There was no vampire directory. Finding our allies could be as difficult a job as convincing them to help.

"That's a lot of ground to cover," I said, though I reluctantly accepted that the decision had already been made.

"We're splitting up," Emmett said, as if the two couples could scour the world in the mere month we had been given. "Rose and I are hunting for nomads."

"You'll have your hands full here," Carlisle said. "Tanya's family will be here in the morning, and they have no idea why. First, you have to persuade them not to react the way Irina did. Second, you've got to find out what Alice meant about Eleazar. Then, after all that, will they stay to witness for us? It will start again as the others come - if we can persuade anyone to come in the first place."

It would be difficult. Conveying the urgency while keeping the secret, and yet gaining enough trust for them to do as we asked. Nomads weren't exactly the trusting type, and nor did covens band together.

We could have used Jasper to inspire trust - but we no longer had that option. Carlisle could have used my help to know what our friends needed to hear, but neither did we have that option. My place was at our home with my wife and child.

Carlisle sighed. I could hear the weight of centuries in the sound, and his responsibility to us as our father. Something I understood now more than ever.

"Your job may be the hardest," he said, acting to reassure me even in the smallest of ways. He would know my desire to go and do. My father was making sure I knew how important what I was doing truly was. All he had to do was convince them to come; I had to convince them to stay.

Our family will get through this. He put a hand on my shoulder and stared into my eyes, letting me see his confidence in me, and his pride.

I did my best to smile for him, to act like the Edward he believed me to be.

Carlisle brushed a kiss across Bella's forehead and exchanged goodbyes with Nessie and Jacob while Esme hugged me and Bella. Emmett gave my shoulder a brotherly punch, and gave one to Bella's, too. He would have broken her bones if she'd still been human. Now, she didn't so much as wobble. Rose bade us farewell, including a grudging smile to Jacob.

Bella seemed incapable of speech, offering only tight smiles or small nods in response to their gestures.

I didn't want to tell my family goodbye, but I couldn't let them all go without a single word from me. Goodbye felt too final, too much like Alice's leaving. Instead of goodbye, I wished all them good luck.

Pausing before he followed the others out the door, Carlisle said, "And to you. We'll all need it."

And then they were gone.